


Seeing Red

by pollitt



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:21:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Shane’s tombstone--if he had one, if there were still cemeteries and churches and people to bury the dead--he always knew the words written on it would say “It was all because of Rick Grimes.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nan/gifts).



> To nan, I hope you enjoy your story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for the opportunity to get into Shane's mind and see what makes him tick!
> 
> Thank you to my betas for their comma wrangling and keeping me and the muses in line.
> 
> This story is roughly alternate timeline to Season 2 with some comic book lore (dealing with the walkers) tossed in. I’ve also played a little shift around with some quotes from the season as well.
> 
> And as a general warning, this is The Walking Dead...

_“It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”_ \--REM

The first time Shane got a good look at the law he was on the wrong side of it. And it was all because of Rick Grimes.

Ain’t that the story of his life.

On Shane’s tombstone--if he had one, if there were still cemeteries and churches and people to bury the dead--he always knew the words written on it would say “It was all because of Rick Grimes.”

Back then, it had been some chew-spitting good ol’ boy who hadn’t taken a liking to the way Rick was talking to him. Shane can’t remember now what it was Rick had said, in fact, he’s not sure he _ever_ knew what it was that made that guy land a fist into Rick’s stomach. He can and does remember that before the third punch was thrown--he hadn’t made it in time to prevent the second, and he can still hear the sickening sound of bone-on-bone when the second punch cracked against Rick’s jaw--Shane had grabbed the guy’s arm and twisted it so hard the other guy dropped to his knees.

Shane’s knuckles were split and bloody when Rick, with the help of a late-arriving sheriff’s deputy, had finally been able to pull Shane away. To look at the three of them--Rick, Shane and the unfortunate bubba--you wouldn’t know that it was Rick who’d been on the receiving end of the first blow. The deputy was talking about putting Shane in cuffs when Rick had stepped in and explained what had happened, and if Shane had just gotten in a couple of good hits it might he gotten away with a pat on the back. But he’d done a number on the other guy and although the deputy had commended him for stepping in for a friend like that, he couldn’t get away completely clean. There was protecting your buddy and there was beating the other guy into a bloody pulp.

It should’ve been a sign to Shane, even then, that when it came to Rick there were no lines that Shane wouldn’t cross. But instead Shane had smirked at the deputy and spit a clot of blood (Shane may’ve been the clear winner of the fight, but the good ol’ boy had gotten a couple of good cracks across his jaw.) in his enemy’s direction and nodded at the rights the deputy was telling him he had. And after Rick had bailed him out with his own spending cash, Shane had hooked his arm around Rick’s neck and led him to a bar to get the guy shitfaced for the first time.

Back then, he could’ve chalked it up to teenage hormones--all that piss and beer and testosterone coursing through his veins like a junkie just off a fix--but the thing of it was that the burn low in Shane’s gut whenever someone got too close to Rick had never gone away.

Sometimes he’d settled it with his fists--even though Rick had long since learned to defend himself properly, that white hat morality of his kept him from throwing the first punch. But with age and experience, Shane had also learned a thing or two. He’d learned how to use the system to keep Rick close and safe, and if it was to the detriment of someone else, well fuck them.

That was before the world had gone to hell with a fucking hand grenade.

Dale had been right, damn him, when he said Shane was made for this new world. He would bathe in the blood of anyone or anything that put Rick or Carl in danger, and that thought alone chills him to his goddamn bones. And in one of the most fucked up turns of thinking, the fact that the thought of harm coming to Rick or Carl, and the lengths he would go, scared him also let him know he hadn’t totally taken a leap off of the bridge of sanity. He might be holding on by fingernails that are threatening to rip out, but he’s holding on.

He’s killed two people and countless walkers (including the bullet-riddled S.O.B. who’d put Rick in the hospital in the first place. Shane had taken particular pleasure in taking him apart one axe swing at a time in revenge) to keep the Grimes boys safe.

Shane has watched Rick risk his life for people he barely knows and almost gone and gotten himself ripped apart more times than Shane cares to think about, and he’s seen both Rick and Carl try to hold themselves together after Lori …

He had never completely warmed up to Lori, she was the only person who came between Rick and him. She’d hurt Rick the most and she’d made him the happiest Shane had ever seen him. And in those weeks when they both thought Rick was gone, when Shane was trying to be the man that Rick would be--even then, when he was screwing his best friend’s wife, in the back of Shane’s mind he knew he was punishing them both because neither of them had really deserved Rick...

Still, she hadn’t deserved to fall in the zombie horde, trying to save someone else’s child. Shane is still grateful to Daryl for making that shot while Shane held Rick and Carl back.

ooooo

The hot water of the shower feels good on his skin and over his newly shorn head. He cleans off the blood and dirt and sweat, he gives his dick a couple of tugs while thinking about Rick. Rick, who is downstairs and watching his son as though the power of his fatherly love and vision could keep Carl from slipping away.

So much for that thought.  


Shane’s out of the shower and in his old training sweats and a t-shirt when Rick comes into the bathroom.

“You look like a sheep on shearing day,” Rick says, cracking a small smile.

“Slaughtering day more like it. How’s Carl?” Shane asks, looking at the line of dried blood line on Rick’s forearm.

“Still hard to tell, but Hershel, he thinks he got it all.” There are bags under Rick’s eyes that look like they’d need their own handcart. “You could come in and sit with him if you’d like. He’d like that. I’d like that.”

Shane’s chest feels like someone’s emptied buckshot into it. Maybe it’s the adrenaline comedown, or maybe it’s the look on Rick’s face.

“Otis, he... I...”

Otis had been an unfortunate necessity--the walkers had been bearing down on them, and there was only the one bullet. Otis’s life for Carl’s. He’d deserved to give his life, he’d been the _reason_ they’d been there. If his bullet hadn’t gone through that deer and into Carl... A bullet for a bullet.

“I know, Shane. Of course I know.” Rick looks at him and he’s so, so _Rick_ with his understanding and his good heart (that same heart that will get ripped out along with his guts by a walker some day if Shane’s not there to protect it.)

Rick puts his hand on Shane’s shoulder and squeezes. Shane has to ball his hands into fists to keep from reaching out for him.

“Come downstairs when you can.”

Once Rick has headed back downstairs, Shane turns and punches the wall until his knuckles bleed.


End file.
